Archiving and retrieval of selected communications and/or documents, such as e-mail messages, to be in compliance with applicable regulations is known. For example, the securities and exchange commission (SEC), a governmental body involved in the regulation of securities, issues a variety of such archiving and retrieval regulations and requirements that organizations involved in the securities business must meet. Existing techniques often involve time consuming and labor intensive solutions that include the physical copying of communications or documents. Some archiving and retrieval methods and systems are entirely paper based where paper copies of all relevant communications and documents are physically copied and physically stored at a secure site. Subsequently, stored information is manually searched and accessed to satisfy authorized request for retrieval of stored information.
Existing archiving and retrieval techniques involve manual and semi-automated copying and storage of electronic communications in an organization. For example, in an electronic-mail (e-mail) system in a securities organization, one existing and known archiving and retrieval technique involves both manual copying and storage of physical copies of communications to be archived. First, there is created a monthly archive storage tape back-up of all communications in e-mail servers in an organization location. The tapes containing the archived e-mails are then sent to a physical location for secure storage. Subsequently, an e-mail retrieval request is submitted for processing through a designated office or department of the organization, for example the law department. Upon approval of the request, the appropriate storage tapes are requested from the storage location and loaded to an available server. Selected e-mail messages stored on the loaded tape can then be retrieved and reviewed by a responsible or designated office, department or individual.
Existing communications archiving and retrieval systems and processes typically require extensive manual and physical copying of the information to be archived. The reliance on physical duplication and physical transport of information to be archived to and from a secure location makes existing archiving and retrieval systems time consuming, inefficient and expensive. The archiving and retrieval of the information is cumbersome since individuals must physically duplicate information for archiving and search for and physically retrieved stored information after an authorized request.
Further, existing archiving and retrieval systems and techniques that employ computers are typically limited to computerized networks with a small number of e-mail users and limited data storage requirements. Also, existing archiving and retrieval systems and techniques often experience drawbacks in large scale systems with a large number of communications and e-mail boxes and high data storage requirements. The drawbacks include slower and unreliable archiving and retrieval of the electronic communications, insufficient data storage space and the loss of data integrity.
There is thus a need for a system and method for archiving and retrieving communications in a large organization or an organization with a large volume of communications to be archived which enables the organization to effectively comply with applicable regulations relating to the business conducted by the organization.